Zara 1941
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | Zara | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1941 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | heavy cruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | Kingdom of Italy | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Royal Italian Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Mediterranean Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | 35.3333, 20.9500 | Wikidata P793 significant event, coordinate qualifier (CC0) |
About the wreck
Zara was a heavy cruiser built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy), the lead ship of the Zara class. Named after the Italian city of Zara (now Zadar, Croatia), the ship was built at the Odero-Terni-Orlando shipyard beginning with her keel laying in July 1928, launching in April 1930, and commissioning in October 1931. Armed with a main battery of eight 8-inch (200 mm) guns, she was nominally within the 10,000-long-ton (10,000 t) limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, though in reality she significantly exceeded this figure.
Zara saw extensive service during the first two years of Italy's participation in World War II, having taken part in several sorties to catch British convoys in the Mediterranean as the flagship of the 1st Division. She was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, the Battle of Taranto in November 1940, and the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. In the last engagement, Zara and her sister ships Fiume and Pola were sunk in a close-range night engagement with three British battleships.
Location
- Recorded position: 35.3333, 20.9500 (Wikidata P793 significant event, coordinate qualifier (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Mediterranean Sea
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Italian cruiser Zara (revision 1378507387), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- Fiume 1941 · 2 km
- Pola 1941 · 4 km
- SS Californian 1915 · 107 km
- HMS Hasty 161 km
- HMS Gloucester 1941 · 194 km
Other wrecks of the World War II
- SS Gracechurch 1940
- SS Rio de Janeiro 1940
- U-13 1940
- U-25 1940
- U-54 1940
- Armando Diaz 1941
- Bismarck 1941
- Fiume 1941
- HMAS Sydney 1941
- HMAS Waterhen 1941
All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · Mediterranean Sea · Second World War